Love a Tree, Read an E! (book)

Hap­py Earth Day Week­end! This post is part of the JustRomance.Me blog hop. If you need to get on the tour bus, just click HERE to get start­ed. For each com­ment I get on this post, I’ll be donat­ing  at least $1 to the Rocky Moun­tain Elk Foun­da­tion. I say “at least” because I’ll be donat­ing any­way, but this way you can con­tribute to the sentiment!

The first time I heard some­one use the phrase “dead tree” to describe a paper­back book, it kin­da struck me as sad. Thanks to dig­i­tal for­mats, books are being pro­duced with­out any eco­log­i­cal waste! Even if you don’t own an e‑reader (yet…good luck in the draw­ing!) you can enjoy dig­i­tal books on your com­put­er, or even your cell phone! There is real­ly no excuse to be away from your favorite reads. To tell the truth, I now look for­ward to a few hours between flights at the airport.

I changed into my Olivia Brynn sweater to find two char­ac­ters in my books who will be cel­e­brat­ing Earth Day in earnest. Jade and Dean from Falling Star are two friends and botanists who own Earth Scents Florists. I’ll share with you the green­est excerpt I’ve got of these two, which only hints at the joys the earth can bring if only you know where to look. This excerpt begins as Dean and Jade join Adam, a coun­try music star, at his home for dinner.

Dean filled her in on the week­end at Earth Scents in between Adam’s direc­tions to his house. When they pulled into a huge cir­cu­lar dri­ve­way, Adam hand­ed Dean a key to the pan­el cam­ou­flaged by dec­o­ra­tive stone, and the tall iron gate opened.

Jade had a hard time keep­ing her mouth closed. She’d seen tele­vi­sion shows that show­cased celebri­ty hous­es, and she could almost hear Robin Leach’s voice point­ing out amenities.

The dark brick dri­ve­way bor­dered the neat­ly trimmed front lawn, sur­round­ed by native trees and boul­ders. The botanist in her sali­vat­ed at the well-main­tained foliage, and could­n’t wait to walk through the prop­er­ty and cat­a­logue each species. A dec­o­ra­tive foun­tain sat in the cen­ter of the dri­ve, angels and birds of white mar­ble direct­ing water flow back into the basin.

Dean stopped the car in front of the door. The stoop was cov­ered in a lush green vine, clema­tis, if she was­n’t mis­tak­en, and gave the entrance an invit­ing feel.

You can just park here, unless you want it in the garage,” Adam told Dean. Jade pressed her fore­head against the car win­dow to see the house in its entire­ty. A two sto­ry Eng­lish Manor-style brick estate, with huge arch­ing win­dows that emit­ted a warm yel­low glow from the spa­cious rooms inside. The clema­tis climbed all the way to the roof, drap­ing the grey and maroon brick with a lush green shroud.

Adam opened her door for her, and smiled at her expression.

Do you like it?”

She nod­ded, try­ing not to look like a coun­try bump­kin with her first look at indoor plumb­ing. “I sup­pose you already have a gar­den­er…” Who­ev­er land­scaped the front lawn knew what they were doing. Jade spun around for a full look at the Eden-like setting.

There’s always room for one more.” Adam reached to pull her into his arms.

“Jade! It’s Tropae­olum majus!” Dean was on his knees in front of a bricked-in enclo­sure between the dri­ve­way and the home. Jade rushed over and mind­less of her attire, knelt beside him.

The plant was gor­geous, the bloom was a per­fect red-orange spec­i­men, opened to its full glo­ry and releas­ing the dis­tinc­tive per­fume in the evening breeze. “It’s amaz­ing! But I can’t tell if it’s from the T. moritzanum or T. pel­topho­rum, it has both characteristics.”

It must be a hybrid. Who­ev­er plant­ed this knew their stuff. Look how it’s flour­ish­ing along with the Trifolium.”

You know,” Adam said from behind them, “I’ve brought a lot of peo­ple to my place. This is the first time they’ve been on their knees in the grass dis­cussing the landscaping.”

What a shame.” Jade looked up at Adam, a lit­tle embar­rassed at her exu­ber­ance, espe­cial­ly in her dress and heels, but she could­n’t stop. “This Tropae­olum majus…or Monk’s Cress, is one of the species that Dean and I stud­ied in Colom­bia. I think we could spend hours out here.”

I’d like to take cred­it, but this was all here when I moved in three years ago. All I know about plants can fit into a thim­ble, with room to spare. But I should get in the show­er and make myself pre­sentable. You two are wel­come to look around out here, or come on inside.”

Jade stood up and dust­ed her hands off. From the look on Dean’s face, it was obvi­ous he want­ed to see what oth­er trea­sures he could find in Adam’s yard.

If you don’t mind, we’d love to snoop around your gar­den.” Jade gripped both of Adam’s hands. “But hur­ry back.”

Adam kissed her cheek before leav­ing the two plant sci­en­tists to their dis­cov­er­ies. Jade watched Adam’s retreat, her gaze focused on his ass, shak­ing her head at his bag­gy shorts.

I’d ask how he was in bed, but the look on your face already told me.”

Falling Star is avail­able now in all for­mats (even dead tree). Click the cov­er for a blurb and buy links. Oth­er­wise, I hope you enjoy your hop through the dig­i­tal hall­ways of JustRomance.Me. Enjoy your Earth Day, and please join us in the after hop chat par­ty 422 at 7pm!

 

31 thoughts on “Love a Tree, Read an E! (book)

  1. Great excerpt. I’m not much of a gar­den­er, but I love to look at and smell the flow­ers some­one else nurtures. 

  2. Enjoyed the excerpt, love to gar­den, but have to com­pete with the squir­rels and the dog dig­ging up my flowers 

  3. I think it’s great you’re donat­ing to the RMEF. I had to com­ment just for that! What a great idea. Won­der­ful excerpt. 🙂 

  4. I’m very very impressed. I’m so hap­py you are donat­ing to RMEF.
    I’m a gar­den­ing nut. I love all things that grow. LOL, I should have been a Hobbit. 

  5. I love the pic­ture of the tree made out of logs. so cre­ative and beau­ti­ful. . Hap­py Earth Day!
    ‑Jes­si­ca B 

  6. I have a feel­ing your sto­ry is a foun­tain of not only romance but knowl­edge as well! Thanks for shar­ing this Earth Day excerpt with us! 

  7. I love flow­ers but unfor­tu­nate­ly I can’t grow any­thing! Thanks for the great excerpt. 😀 

  8. Great excerpt! I love to work in my flower garden.,I’m look­ing for­ward to plant­i­ng it soon. 

  9. Thanks for shar­ing the sto­ry and the pics as well. I always take close-ups of my own gar­den and use the pic­tures for my desk­top background. 

  10. Great excerpt, def­i­nite­ly makes me want to read more. I do love plants and gar­den­ing, I can’t do that much any­more because of my RA, but I enjoy the look and smell of a beau­ti­ful garden. 

    Lin­da
    seri­ous­read­er at live dot com 

  11. Nice excerpt!! I like to gar­den and plant, but I do not have a green thumb. I have to have plants that I don’t do any­thing with. 🙂
    Mel
    bourn­melis­sa at hot­mail dot com 

  12. Great excerpt! I cant real­ly tells flow­ers apart, i only know a hand­ful. The pic­tures above are beau­ti­ful. I love flow­ers, have a ton of them and can only name about 3. lol Oh! Cool cov­er! I thought it was a trick of the light at first. Thats awe­some! 🙂 Thank you for the awe­some hop and giveaway! 😉
    shadowluvs2read(at)gmail(dot)com

  13. I enjoyed the excerpt. Though I love to plant and grow flow­ers, I’m unable to do as much as I used to. 

  14. Great excerpt. My lawn would not get peo­ple tak­ing a clos­er look. Most­ly dirt and oak leaves. 

  15. Love the excerpt. It must be a blow to Adam’s ego that Jade is more inter­est­ed in his gar­den than him! :o)

  16. Wish I had flow­ers as beau­ti­ful as the ones you have pictured…I inher­it­ed the black thumb…but I still try! 

  17. I enjoyed the way you put pho­tos with the blog­ging. I to enjoy gar­den­ing and using my rain bar­rels to help my flow­ers, trees and plants through the summer.

  18. Those are gor­geous pho­tos! Thanks for post­ing them and for your dona­tion to that par­tic­u­lar charity. 

    joderjo402 AT gmail DOT com 

  19. I think your char­i­ty is great cause and what a won­der­ful ges­ture of adding more mon­ey to the cause from our postings.
    I loved the excerpt and the beau­ti­ful flow­ers you posted. 

    Tere­sa k. 

  20. I too love the look of beau­ti­ful flow­ers but hate the time it takes to weed them. Thanks for donat­ing to some­thing that saves nature for the next generation. 

  21. I tend to kill flow­ers, lol. But I do find that I am read­ing many more e‑books these days. There are only a few authors that I have to buy in print, because I had already start­ed col­lect­ing them before get­ting into e‑books.

  22. Thanks for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to donate by post­ing. I’m read­ing more ebooks these days like many of the oth­er posters. While I say that, I do like the feel of a book in my hands from dead trees too but am more con­scious when I buy them. 

Whadd'ya think?